I feel really guilty about not writing enough. But please bear with me people, I will get the hang of it again. I just have to figure out how to combine a full time job (which is great!) with blogging…It is going to work, I promise. I mean, there is enough to write about. Some of my friends have been doing some great stuff, I’ve seen some lovely things coming by on my feed and there is this amazing event coming up in my home town.

If you like design, food trucks, pop up stores and festivals, you should definitely go to Designkwartier Den Haag from the 16th to the 18th of May. This new design festival, in the nicest neighbourhood of The Hague, will be a ‘low-brow’ event where product- and interior design is combined with the great little spots the Zeeheldenkwartier has to offer. Think pop up stores in museums, mini malls in living rooms and food from firetrucks. What I like most about this new festival is that it’s ‘sale-minded’. This sounds kind of wrong but what I mean is that Designkwartier, opposed to Eindhoven’s Dutch Design Week, will be a festival were designers sell their products instead of ‘exhibiting’ them. This makes the festival very accessible for everyone, instead of being pretentious and focused on professionals. Just browse through new and refreshing products, have a chat with the designers and buy whatever you fall in love with.

I’m the kind of girl that always has a ton of resolutions and plans but never really finishes, or even starts them. I think that this blog is the only thing that really came through. I will never stop making plans though, I still believe I can become a DIY master and have the most awesome interior or start a weave club and make these amazing rugs that the whole world will want to buy.

A great example of someone who really makes something of their plans is Alex Proba. Via Freunde von Freunden, the online magazine that everyone should read, I found this amazing designer/illustrator/art director. Looking at her resume you can see that this girl definitely does not sit still. Good for us, because this girl decided to design a poster every day after work in only 30 minutes. You can see every design (and maybe order by email?) on her A Poster a Day Tumblr. Let’s just shut up and enjoy all the lovely pictures.

I am super excited because I’m starting a new job next week! A real job, with a desk and everything. It feels like a first school day is coming up so I’m instantly fantasising about stationary. My new colleagues will probably think I’m nuts if I show up with a bunch of designer leather bound notebooks and special edition pencils, but hey, a girl can dream right? Maybe I’ll just sneak them in one item at a time…
Anyway, these items are constantly in my mind lately:

I just discovered the beautiful products of Gitte van Helvoirt, a Dutch designer who hand-makes beautiful stationary products under the label By Gitte. She works with organic felt and vegetable tanned leather and uses colours and designs that make every piece timeless. Just as this amazing notepad. Apart from the beautiful color and the lovely material, this notepad is super practical. You can just insert A5 notebooks, perfect for when you are a perfectionist and don’t want to screw up your new notebook. I can already see myself attending some meetings with this sophisticated bad boy.

We don’t want to be TOO mature at work, so why don’t we loosen up the place (the desk) with a little bit of fun. No I’m not decorating things with glitter nail polish like we did in high school, but you’ve got to love the Tower Block notes by Hay. Writing memo’s and grocery lists shouldn’t be boring. It’s also a perfect alternative for plants, when it comes to desk decoration. You don’t have to water it and you still have something great to look at.

Ok so I’m going to work in a bit of a boys club and in my first conversation with one of my future colleagues told me that everybody has to write with pencils when it comes to planning, because nothing is final. As a newbie and one of the few girls I, of course, have to make a good impression. What better way than to work with a pencil that looks like a bullet? Isn’t that bad ass? It’s made of brass which makes it even more beautiful over time. Like the Midori website says:”brass has a somewhat nostalgic feeling which makes you want to use it for years and years, as if it is something you cannot bear to part with.”

In my obsession I found this great online store, based in London, with the cutest collection of stationary. I love the images they use, very colourful and happy. Still very sophisticated is this archive tray from untreated oak. It has a great color and I can imagine that your files look a lot less threatening in this thing instead of a cold steel rack. As Present and Correct happily say: “One for in, one for out, one for shaking it all about.”

For all the rest of my desk I am planning to buy the whole Misc-store, like this awesome Hacoa masking tape holder. Did you know that the Misc-store now also have a physical store in Amsterdam? You have got to see it, it is beautiful!
For the rest of y’all, the whole collection is available online.They have lovely brands and an impeccable style. I also admire all their elaborative product descriptions in their webstore, you have no idea how much work and love that takes.

Keep it pretty you guys, keep it pretty.

Images from top to bottom: Present and Collect , By Gitte, Hay, Misc-store, Present and Collect, Misc-store.

After eating some great hamburgers at ter Marsch & Co., we spontaneously got invited for a private tour through Rotterdams King Kong, a new hostel that is founded by the previous owner of Rotterdam’s well known Café de Witte Aap. And lets just say: if I didn’t live in this awesome city already I would totally stay here for a weekend. From private rooms that subtly refer to the brothel who occupied the building before, to big dorms with robe slings and hammocks; they have it all.

What I like the most about this place, is that it breathes the Rotterdam attitude. The whole interior is put together by a whole bunch of people, artists, designers and galleries, so every room has its own theme and represents something Rotterdam. I only had my iPhone with me so the pictures turned out pretty crappy, sorry, luckily the hostel’s Facebook page had some nice pictures so I can show you.

So I’m a big fan of paper. Print is not dead. That’s why I wanted to give you a list of printed matter that is on my wish list, I am reading right now or is prominently present in my home at te moment.

This book is great for everyone who needs to communicate something. Made to Stick has a permanent spot in my handbag at the moment and I’m reading it every chance I get. It is written in a way that everyone can understand it, and most importantly, instantly apply it. With great examples, practical tools and exercises this book should be on everyone’s list, even if you are a stay at home mom and want to tell your kids something they will always remember.

René Redzepi, owner of the World’s Best Restaurant Noma, kept a journal for a year to answer the question “How do you achieve greater creativity at the world’s best restaurant?” This resulted in A Work in Progress, which contains three books: a recipe book with 100 brand new recipes, a journal and a snap-shot booklet with 200 shots give a great insight in the day to day life of the restaurant crew. This publication is not only on the top of my wish list because of the great design and the stunning high-end recipes, but also because it’s a great read and it gives you a behind-the-scenes-sneak-peek in one of the worlds most famous restaurants.

Successful lifestyle magazine The Monocle published their first book, solely about their main focus: How to live well.
With reports, tips and guides from all over the world, The Monocle created a beautiful and friendly guide that contains everything that makes the Monocle magazine so great. The rich yellow canvas hard cover makes it a book that I proudly lay out for show in my interior and I really enjoy flipping through the pages while sitting on the couch with a glass of wine.

Another great example of a first publication by a magazine is The Kinfolk Table, a cookbook for small gatherings by Kinfolk Magazine. I’ve written a post about this great cookbook earlier, where you can see some great images of the inside. For this cookbook Kinfolk did what they do best: gather people from all over the world and put them together in such a harmonious way that it looks like all these beautiful brilliant people live together and have been best friends forever. Opposed to Rezepi’s A Work in Progress, The Kinfolk table shows simple everyday recipes from people who are not necessarily chefs or food professionals. A definite must-have in the kitchen.

Let’s not kid ourselves, in the end we are all children and everyone loves colouring. For only €2,- you can buy this super pretty mandala-colouring book at the Danish retail chain Flying Tiger, which is some kind of mix between Ikea and Hema, but even cheaper. They have everything, from make-up to trash cans and of course all with a Scandinavian sense of design. It’s hard to hate it.

Ikea is releasing more and more images of the new Ikea Ps collection that will release on the 1st of April and they also released this promo video, which only makes me more curious of what the 40-piece-collection will bring us! Check it out.

As I told you before I am the happy owner of a print by Copenhagen based artist and designer Kristina Krogh. I think her work is so lovely and sophisticated. And what I love even more is that her stationary products work really well with her prints without making them a dime a dozen. That’s why I wanted to give you a quick update on her new notebooks that look amazing. They come in two colours and are embossed with gold metallic foil. My favourite is the beige one with the cute little sentence ‘Keep your thoughts with me’, but you should see for yourself.

I don’t know what’s going on with Ikea but I really like what they are doing. I was already obsessing about their limited edition BRAKIG collection they launched in the first week of February together with the Danish label ArtRebels, and now Ikea is launching a new PS collection in April! So let’s all get over the fact that the Expedit will disappear because there are some awesome new classics coming up. Yesterday I stumbled upon a little sneak peek on the lovely blog of Nordic Days and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. Maybe I even dreamt about it.

The collection is very bold for Ikea but still has that lovely Scandinavian touch. The main focus of the collection is Ikea’s great talent: saving space. Items like cabinets and clothing/kitchen racks are designed in a way that they can be placed in the corner of the room or easily moved around the house, which give the designs a very exciting look and it’s so handy! These are the only images I could find of the new collection, but I can already see that the rack will be a new favourite for me. It would be a great addition to the bedroom to hang your plaids and pyjama’s and stack some books. The collection will contain 40 pieces (!) so I’m really looking forward to more images. What do you guys think?

Sometimes I’m so happy there is something like the internet. I’m just the new kid on the block when it comes to blogging, but I’ve been reading them for years and I love how you can really follow these bloggers.

One of these bloggers is Irene Hoofs with Bloesem blogs. Bloesem blogs is one of my great examples when it comes to blogging and Dutch design. Funny enough, Irene left the Netherlands in 1997 but always kept up to date with all the new on Dutch design. Irene has been living in Singapore for a while now and two weeks ago she opened up her own creative space and store there. And though I don’t have the budget to go and visit the store any time soon, I just love I could follow the whole ‘making of’.

The Bloesem space turned out great. I just love how she created all these little still lifes in the store and I am just in love with the way she displays some of these products by hanging them on these little wooden beams that hang in leather straps. They (Irene works together with Singaporean photographer and stylist Zara S., who has a great Instagram feed) have a great collection of vintage finds, Bloesem’s own products and little brands from different parts of the world. Of course it wouldn’t be Bloesem if they wouldn’t sell some Dutch brands and I was excited to see the Story Tiles and Jurianne Matter among the collection, two brands we also sell at LhGWR. So if you have the money, go to Singapore and visit the Bloesem space. Otherwise just be like me and read the blog and check out there online store!

I’m not a big mobile gamer. Mostly because I find most of these games for your phone or iPad so blatant and noisy. But a year ago or so a friend of mine introduced me to OLO. OLO is a game designed by the London based interactive design studio Sennep, that started as an experiment and ended up as an award winning game and rightfully so. This game is beautifully designed and all the colours and sounds are so friendly to the eyes and ears. It has a very minimalistic but friendly and funny style and the game itself is very addictive!

More good news: Because of their 10th birthday, Sennep created another game called TEN. TEN is a very stylish version of tic-tac-toe where you play nine little games of tic-tac-toe simultaneously on a master tic-tac-toe grid. Just as OLO, TEN is an minimalistic and aesthetic delight. They used the same kind of matt like colours as they used in OLO and the sounds of the game create melodies while you play! So if you need a break from this monday but want to keep it stylish: TEN and OLO are available in the AppStore.